Christa McAuliffe Middle School

Fall Picture Day at CMMS will take place on Monday, October 26th.  Please see the attached flyer for more information on how to place your picture order online. A digital copy of the order form has been sent to your email that is connected to Skyward. If you have any questions about picture day please contact the main office at 686-7640.

Now that we are returning to class, it's time to stock up on your Bobcat gear! Our online school store is open and there are great choices out there for you! See our selection at https://cmmsfallstore.itemorder.com and place your order. Welcome Back, Bobcats!!

CMMS 6th Graders and Parents: This message is to inform you that the yearbooks are in for all students who attended Bangor Elementary schools last year.  Please stop by the main office of the elementary school that your child attended last year to obtain your yearbook.  DO NOT come to the middle school office for your child’s yearbook.  If you have questions about elementary yearbook pick up please call your respective elementary school office.

CMMS Parents and Students: We have heard your requests and we are pleased to announce that we will be holding an Open House event for all 6th graders and any new CMMS students on Thursday, October 15th from 3pm to 6pm. This will be an opportunity for our new students to walk the building and learn where their classes are and familiarize themselves with the building before the first day of school. There will not be any formal presentations at this event and you can arrive at any point between 3pm and 6pm. Here are the procedures that must be followed for this Open House event: 1. Students will only be permitted to bring ONE adult with them. 2. Everyone must wear a mask in order to enter the building, no exceptions. 3. Students are asked to print out their schedule ahead of time from Skyward so they know what room numbers to look for. We will not be printing these out to distribute. 4. We will provide you with a map and daily schedule if you need one. 5. Everyone will enter the building through the main doors at the front of the building. No other entrances will be open. We cannot wait to welcome you back into the building and we look forward to seeing you on the 15th. If you have any questions about the open house event please contact the main office at 686-7640.

CMMS Parents and Students: When we return to in-person learning on October 19th, our schedule will look a little bit different due to some changes we had to make. The schedule that we will follow is attached to this message. The main differences that you will notice is that the first and last classes of the day are 10 minutes longer than the rest, and we now will have Flex every day of the week. There are two lunch periods just like in past school years. If you have any questions about the schedule we will use when we return to in-person learning on the 19th, please call the main office at 686-7640.

Please see the link below for a detailed document that contains our new return to learning plans and procedures. This document covers many of the important changes to daily procedures that parents and students will need to be familiar with before returning to in person learning on October 19th. If you have any questions about the information contained in this document, please call the main office at 686-7640. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TY9b4Kdtkr4Jxaz59vo_DsmRHIyutexAty_7J0x--MU/edit?usp=sharing

CMMS Parents and Students: Due to count day next week, high school state testing the week of October 12th and our first week back face to face the week of the 19th, we will be running a Monday/Friday schedule for the next three weeks (October 5th - 23rd).  If you have any questions please call the main office at 686-7640.

CMMS Parents and Students: This Friday, October 2nd is scheduled as a half day for students and it will be an independent work day with no live lessons. Teachers may be providing independent work for students to complete on Friday, finishing up NWEA testing, and will be available to answer questions and provide academic support. Teachers will be available from 7:30 to 9:00 am in their Google Meet for their Flex class. If a student needs support from a teacher they will need to make sure they access the Flex class in Google Meet for that particular teacher as we will not be following an hourly schedule on Friday. If you have any questions about this format for Friday, please call the main office at 686-7640.

Parents and Guardians, Part of our return to learning plan requires us to administer benchmark assessments on all of our students in the first nine weeks of school and during the last nine weeks of school. We wanted to inform all of our parents that our students will be using a familiar assessment in NWEA to meet this testing requirement. Beginning the week of September 21st (next week) your child will be remotely participating in the NWEA assessments in the core subject areas of ELA and math. ELA testing will take place during the week of September 21st and math testing will take place during the week of September 28th. For more information on NWEA testing please check your email that is linked to Skyward for a parent letter and see the link below for the NWEA family tool kit. If you have any questions about NWEA testing please contact the main office at 686-7640. https://www.nwea.org/the-map-suite/family-toolkit/

CMMS girls interested in playing Volleyball, tryouts will be held at the CMMS gym this week at the following times: Thursday 5-7 pm Friday 4-6 pm All levels are the same times @CMMS. Please make sure to have your physical or health questionnaire if you turned in a physical last year. Participation fees will be collected after the teams are selected. You must bring your own labeled water bottle and you must wear a face mask the entire time. Only student athletes and coaches will be allowed inside the gym.

CMMS Pompon tryout information: Tryouts begin Monday (8/14), Tuesday (8/15), from 5:30-7:30 and Wednesday (8/16) starting at 5:45 all behind CMMS by the tennis courts. Any questions about tryouts and for a tryout packet can be sent to christamcauliffepompon@gmail.com.

With Bobcat Pride, Christa McAuliffe Middle School announces Honors ELA student, Kaya Clickner, as one in only ten winners of Scholastic’s nationwide “Bilan Writing Contest!” Kaya’s writing was a response to the nonfiction article, “I Live in a Refugee Camp: Come Into My World.” This powerful article shares the story of fifteen year old Bilan, a refugee who left her home in Somalia and moved to the Kobe refugee camp in Ethiopia. The article focuses on the reasons Bilan and others have become refugees and how their lives have changed because of their experiences. In response to the article, Kaya composed an essay describing how Bilan became a refugee, what her life is like in the Kobe camp, and what’s being done to help refugees like her. Kaya received a letter from Scholastic over the summer that congratulated her as being a winner of the contest and included the message, “We loved your detailed and well written essay regarding Bilan’s experience in the Kobe refugee camp. You wrote in such a way that the reader was really able to understand and empathize with Bilan’s situation. Furthermore, you included a strong introduction that really hooked the reader! Excellent work!” Kaya’s prize for winning the Bilan Writing Contest was the book Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga. Congratulations to Kaya! The dedication you have shown in researching, drafting, revising, rewriting, and editing your essay demonstrates many of your strong character traits and talents. We look forward to watching you continue to grow and leave your legacy as a leader at Christa McAuliffe Middle School.

Students interested in CMMS Sideline Football Cheer, We are having tryouts Friday Sept. 11th from 5pm -8pm 6th grade from 5pm - 6:30pm, and 7th and 8th grade from 6:30pm - 8pm. And then, Saturday Sept. 12th from 9am-Noon 6th grade from 9 am - 10:30 am, and 7th and 8th 10:30am - noon. We are holding tryouts behind the middle school building. All girls must register for tryouts by emailing us their name and grade level to cmmscheerleading@gmail.com before tryouts.

This is just a friendly reminder that we will be following the regular remote block schedule for next week (September 8-11). So please make sure you are following the Tuesday block schedule to start next week on the 8th. If you have any questions please reach out to a teacher or call the main office at 686-7640.

FYI...the CMMS office will be closed all day on Friday, August 28th and reopen on Monday, August 31st from 8:00 to 3:00.

The links to CMMS teachers' online lesson plan books are now available in the staff section of our school website. Click on the link below to go directly to our staff directory. These online lesson plan books will be updated by 11:59 pm on Fridays for lessons that will take place the following week. Teacher Planbook links will be listed directly below their email address. https://www.bangorschools.org/o/cmms/staff

We understand that not everyone was able to login and access our parent informational meeting tonight. We apologize for that inconvenience, but the good news is that we recorded the meeting. Please click on the link below to access the recording of tonight's meeting. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dn5HvkMNSqc7ZI7Pmd1vhL2QSOm6Cw2f/view?usp=sharing

CMMS Parents and Guardians: We wanted to let you know that CMMS Principal, Kevin Biskup, and Assistant Principal, Renee Mrozinski, will be hosting a parent informational Zoom meeting on Wednesday, August 26th at 5:30 pm. This meeting will cover several topics including how to login to the district Chromebooks, how you CMMS student will access their teachers Google Classroom Page and Google Meet meetings, how to understand the daily schedule, where to access the online lesson plan books for teachers, and a host of other topics. We will also answer any additional questions you may have about the start of this new and unique school year. This meeting will be geared towards our 6th grade students and any new students in the district but is open to any CMMS family. Please see the Zoom meeting details below. Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88699101306?pwd=dHBsV0c4d3ZsVXlRQ0ZoaHA1dVRxQT09 Meeting ID: 886 9910 1306 Passcode: 7A2U39

CMMS Students and Parents: Please see the attached daily schedule that we will be using while we are in remote learning. The times for the class periods will be when teachers are delivering their live instruction through Google Meet. We also ask that all students check their email in order to accept invitations to their teachers' Google classrooms. Please note that due to the fact that the first week of school is a three day week, we will be following the Monday/Friday schedule on September 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

CMMS Students: We would ask that you please do not put stickers, decorations, or make any permanent marks or changes to your school issued Chromebook that you received at registration last week. You will be returning these computers at the end of your 8th grade year and will be issued a new one when you become a freshman at John Glenn. The reason high school students are able to decorate their Chromebooks is because they will be keeping those computers when they graduate. The same will be true for the Chromebook you are issued as a freshman.